2.28.2006

I'm now a professional voice actor!It's not the Muppets or anything, but CDL recorded me for a QEP podcast. My ultra-cheesy line was, "Hey, what about tuition? Is this going to raise my tuition?" Do me a favor and don't listen to it.Ever.Interlude while Tihleigh, the Goddess of HTML, assists her floundering acolyte. We're pounding out some solutions on my nearly-complete ePortfolio, choc-full of goodies destined to cause academic libraries everywhere to offer me astounding positions at amazing pay.Well, one can hope.

2.27.2006

Alex and I were sad to see the games end last night. We're both big Olympics fans--both seasons of them--and it seems a long, long time to wait for the next round. And, dude--HD Olympics? I've got two words for that: gor-geous!

And a note to all my friends and readers: this week is Capstone week for UNT's School of Library and Information Science. That means I have one week to write three essays, 1500-2500 words each, to qualify for graduation in May. It's pass/fail, and I'm confident I'll have no trouble, but just know that I may not have a lot of time for blog updates for about seven days.

2.23.2006

I read Ghost World today. I'm looking through graphic novel resources at the library and pick the best ones to list in a Subject Guide. I picked out about eleven books today and perused them to determine if they were list-worthy or not, and got so sucked into Ghost World that I finished it. It's hard to say if I liked it or not, or totally "got" it, but man, was the art gorgeous. I love the light blue as the only accent on the stark black and white. In other news, I finally learned the correct way to fold T-shirts today. In my strangely uncharacteristic housekeeping bent of the past two months, I've been folding laundry and cleaning in the mornings while watching the news and whatever else comes on channel 8 after it (because the bunny ears don't get much else). Anyhow, when the soaps came on this morning, I switched to fuzzy channel 5 in self-defense, and Martha Stewart herself showed me how easy it was to make Alex's undershirts look like they'd been folded by clerks at Foley's, instead of rumpled semi-folded piles that gradually pool into cottony oblivion in the drawer. It bugs me a little that I'm so proud of this domestic skill, when I ought to be catching up on Slashdot news or learning Japanese or refining my superhero skills. But, yaknow, the shirts still have to be folded. They might as well be folded with the precision that only a quirky art library student can give, right?

And in the Amazingly Great News category: we got new chairs at work! Now, for those of you who stand up all day or already have great chairs, this may not seem like news. But those of you who've fought over the one decent office chair, the one that reclines and raises, you know what I'm talking about. My back's been protesting the slumpy, slouch-inducing seats for months, and today, I was amazed to find two shiny--well, okay, not shiny in the physical sense, but shiny in the "oh cool, they're new" sense--two shiny gorgeous blue chairs at the Reference Desk. And when I sat down, I suddenly remembered what it felt like to sit on a chair with a cushion. An actual cushion-y cushion, not a chair bitterly hardened by years of posteriors smashing it flat.

Hooray for naive, idealistic chairs! Hooray for having no idea what that means!

2.20.2006

This weekend's biting weather was quite harsh after a glorious winter of 60-89 degree days. I demand that the "snow day" excuse be supplemented by the "it was gloriously warm and cozy in my bed this morning and I didn't want to freeze in the shower" excuse.

Bad part of weekend: not being able to see my mother's commencement ceremony and then driving home on freezing slick roadsGood part of weekend: watching Latin ice dancing (what was with all the falling?) while putting up our Ikea bookcase

Now, back to completing my online portfolio. Dreamweaver, bow to my every whim! (Yeah, yeah, I stayed up too late with the bookcase thing to be clever now. I realize this.)

2.17.2006

2.16.2006

I emailed Alex a very long list of all the reasons I'm happy today--too numerous to mention here. Nothing like nice weather and a really good cup of coffee to put a spring in my step!

And just the day for it, too, because I gave my first library instruction presentation today, to a group of initially un-enthused Communication students. My perky comment at the beginning, however--"Bear with me, I've had a LOT of coffee and may speak incredibly fast"--got a chuckle and most of them on my side.

I also got to help a lot of them one-on-one, for two different classes. This is my favorite part of being a librarian--well, okay, it ties with researching obscure art topics. But helping a flustered person find the information they want gives me a deep feeling of satisfaction and purpose. I taught them something, and found something they needed--and in most cases, they are incredibly grateful. I'd have never dreamed it! But let me tell you, I've helped a girl find the one article she needs for a paper that's due the next morning at 8am, and received such thankful comments that you'd think I pulled a kitten out of a burning house.

All the fun and rewards of teaching, none of the papers to grade. Is it any wonder that I love my job?

2.14.2006

Is it wrong that I find this story funny from both sides? Particularly on Valentine's Day? I mean, this is the kind of thing I expect to find pimply thirteen-year-olds scrawling on bathroom stalls, not publicly performed by college-age loonies.

So, I've been married for five years, and yet somehow I still have this gut anti-Valentine's reaction. Part of it is the Hallmark-made-up commercialism of it all--and my anger that dark chocolate ads really do make me lust after them. But the majority of it is that my residual self-image is of myself as the one person in the office, dorm, or classroom without a vase of flowers, box of chocolates, or those ridiculous balloon bouquets they get away with selling in high school by claiming it's a fundraiser for the cheerleading team. As if the cheerleaders are deceiving anyone that they're not actually trying to find another way to rub in high school's innate, miserable caste system.

Now, I do happen to be all gussied up in red today, but considering that I don't get to see my beloved best friend until 11pm tonight shortly before we roll into bed, it's not my tribute to a day of storied romantic bliss. It's really just an excuse to wear red and my nifty knee-high boots. Because it's always a good excuse to wear nifty knee-high boots.

2.13.2006

So what are toast flavored crackers? What, Frito Lay can't actually toast their crackers, so they inject them with the flavor of slightly-singed cracker?

To add to the reasons I like librarianship: today a girl wearing a Green Lanternring asked me about finding articles on Superman and Shazam for her persuasive speech. It's great being the resident pop-culture library expert.Don't get the title of this post? Click on it--it's a link. (And then watch Farscape, you ninny!)

I am glad to see the joy on a friend's face when I lend them a season of Stargate SG1. Spreadin' the love.Can I just say that it makes me supremely sad and a little outraged that the media* says that Michelle Kwan's career is over at age 25? I know professional sports are for the young and all, but doesn't Scott Hamilton still occasionally skate with Stars on Ice? Doesn't she have a lot of her life ahead of her? Does saying that her illustrious career is over at this age make me look 1) unaccomplished at age 27, and 2) old and washed-up? Danged media. Bunch of meanies.

*And yeah, I'm totally depressed that she isn't competing. I now officially have no idea who any of the competing figure skaters are. Hmph. At least the Flying Tomato had an awesome half-pipe run and Chad Hedrick did Texas proud. Newest Wish: become a professional snowboarderRealistic Goal: become a professional librarian that watches snowboarding

Yesterday, I heard a BBC radio program, Outlook, on déjà vu. Two interesting tidbits: 1) most people find this sensation pleasant, and 2) some people experience chronic déjà vu. It's a problem for the chronic sufferers, because they are consistently convinced they've done things before, to the point that they don't want to, for instance, watch TV or play games because they believe that they have already seen or done that. I found #1 intriguing, because although I find déjà vu pleasant, it always bothered me that there wasn't a real reason for it to seem pleasant. Except that, like weird dreams, it's another odd human experience that happens infrequently. So I was surprised that, apparently, many other people find it pleasant, as well. Why?I was shocked and amused at the number of people they interviewed that believed déjà vu was evidence of reincarnation or that humans are psychic. Um... yeah. Let's just say human brains are wired in odd ways, and leave it at that. Nothing supernatural about thinking you've been at that train station at 9am and seen a man in a purple raincoat before. I hope not, anyway.And we all know the best explanation for it, right? (C'mon, We all know the first movie is worth pretending the other two didn't happen.)My most memorable déjà vu experience: sometime in my middle school years, I'm standing at the counter on the dining room side, Dad on the kitchen side, and as I begin to speak, I look down and see a Hershey's chocolate bar--and it flashes that I've said this, with Dad in the kitchen, while looking at the Hershey's bar, before. For about 4.5 seconds I wonder if I dreamed it last night, before it occurs to me that this is just déjà vu. Darned convincing, though.What's yours?

2.06.2006

Man, I hate it when a contact gets stuck somewhere behind my eyeball. You can feel it, but you can't see it. Ew. And since I have this gross-out thing about eyeballs (like Rachel on "Friends"), I can hardly lift my eyelid up without retching--so I usually choose to wait it out. This means I have to go to sleep that night and the contact will magically appear on my pillow the next morning. Luckily, however, the one that lodged itself back there this morning just came out. Whew.So after working out this afternoon, Amy and I watched a few home movies from back in the day. Specifically, the days when she was about seven or eight, and I was about eleven or twelve. There are things that we did with video cameras that made great sense at the time, but are terrifically bizarre, frightening, or a combination of the two today. After about ten minutes, we looked at each other and mutually agreed that perhaps odd parents homeschooling odd children leaves those children with no litmus test for normalcy. Perhaps for my future kids' own good, Alex and I should not purchase a video camera. Then they'll have nothing to be blackmailed with down the road.And, yaknow, in case they want to work with the FBI someday and a background check is required, they might still stand a chance.I know I wouldn't.

So, if the anticipated Pixar/Disney re-deal does go through, at least this time it looks like Pixar's getting a better deal. Mixed feelings abound: loyalty for Old Disney, bitter anger and lack of respect for New Disney, immense love and respect for Pixar and yet--irrepressible joy when I see the Disney logo on a Pixar film. Sigh...

Irony:n,1. A key word in a repetitive yet strangely catchy Alanis Morsette song. 2. The fact that while email forwards tick me off and are promptly deleted, bulletins on MySpace delight me. There's something narcissistically twisted about how much I enjoy answering questions.

So in my PHP class last spring, one of my classmates created this nifty word cloud--it acted both as a guide to frequently-discussed topics, and also a nifty navigational tool. I thought to myself, "Self, that's a really cool little trick." And promptly forgot about it.

Yesterday, while reading a librarian blog, I was reminded of this trick in a new, neat way. SnapShirts will create custom t-shirts based on your blog's feed (or another blog that you read), and you can choose colors and sizes, then promptly purchase a few dozen to distribute to family, friends, and poorly-dressed passers-by. Theoretically, you could clever use such shirts to further promote your blog or website... hmmm.

If you'd like to add a similar word cloud to your website to use as an afore-mentioned nifty navigational tool, go to TagCloud for an easy alternative to slaving through the code on your own. I'll post a link to mine when it's been formulated.